Falling Down: Trailer, certificate and where to watch
Michael Douglas stars as a middle-aged man reaching boiling point
Year: 1993
Certificate: 18
Joel Schumacher's darkly comic drama asks the question, 'Is Michael Douglas's character the bad guy?' Douglas plays a middle-aged, seemingly average white guy called William Foster, referred to as 'D-Fens' from the personalised number plate on his beaten-up jalopy.
The film opens with Foster reaching boiling point inside his car, in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam with various obnoxious Los Angelenos as the temperature climbs. The tension is palpable. The moment when Foster flips and abandons his car to start his journey 'home' on foot is the first of many understandable if increasingly uneasy - and dangerous - acts of rebellion.
Filmed and released around the time of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, this depicts American society as walking on a knife edge of racial tension. If Douglas's character is not an out-and-out racist, he is resentful of people he perceives to be having an easier ride than him.
But the moral ambiguity of his character is given bloody release when faced with something even uglier than himself - a homophobic Nazi who has misappropriated D-Fens as a vigilante hero because 'We're the same, you and me.'
This is the moment when Foster really flips and embraces a new destiny, quite apart from the one he has been told to follow all his life, as father, son, husband and employee. During a strained telephone conversation with his estranged wife (who has taken out a restraining order on him), he admits he is past the point of no return.
At the film's climax, Foster expresses surprise when he realises that he is the bad guy. In terms of society, of law and order, his rebellion must be punished, but as far as the cinematic audience is concerned, the answer to the question 'Is he the bad guy?' is a resounding 'No'.
Douglas was Joel Schumacher's first choice for the controversial lead role: 'He has a white American average guy thing about him, which I needed,' Schumacher said. 'He also has dark edges, and was willing to play a risky, non-user-friendly role. Many stars only want to play Mother or Brother Teresa.' (113 minutes)
